Tuesday, August 31, 2010

The Decline and Fall of Chatroulette - Digits - WSJ

For many Chatroulette users, I suspect there’s a bug-or-feature debate in this context

But the new design doesn’t appear to address the biggest problem with Chatroulette: the number of people using the site solely to share explicit images of themselves with total strangers. Chatroulette founder Andrey Ternovskiy has spoken out against people exposing themselves on the service, and this summer he wrote an open letter on the site saying that he would contact law enforcement with information about offenders.

There has been speculation that Chatroulette would implement filters to remove such content. But a look at the site makes it clear that this hasn’t happened. “It’s still the same wild, very sick world we’ve come to know and never go near,” writes Gary Cutlack at Gizmodo.